ANTON WEBERN is one of the greatest figures of twentieth-century European modernism and a composer of global influence. On the one hand, he was a bold innovator, anticipating even Schoenberg and Berg within the New Viennese school, and giving impetus to the second avant-garde after the 1950s. It is no coincidence that Pierre Boulez described him as “the only forerunner of the music of the future”. On the other hand, he preserved Christian values and the high ideals of truth, goodness, purity, moral firmness, and timeless beauty shared by his predecessors, including Kant and Goethe. His music combines moments of extraordinary tenderness with extreme sonority, of austere sonic asceticism with grace of line and timbre. Webern’s style in its most general characteristic is utterly devoid of entertainments and excesses; it is maximally synthesized, refined, complex, and of crystal-precise forms.

His first compositional attempts date from 1899. Between 1902 and 1906 he studied at the Institute of Music History of the University of Vienna, and wrote and defended his dissertation on the music of the Dutch Renaissance composer Henry Issac. His first compositions until 1904 were symphonic idylls. Until 1908 he was a pupil of A. Schoenberg, whose landmark words he followed. After a period of training, his innovative style was finally formed. In parallel, Webern worked as a symphony and opera conductor. His first serial-decaphonic piece was in 1913. Only after Opus 17 did he write only in the dodecaphonic style out of 31 opuses.

With the onset of Nazism, his life became extremely difficult, and he stopped composing to avoid being influenced by fascist doctrine.